in the eye of man

If I had had the opportunity to be there in Matthew’s shoes when he recorded the Beatitudes as they were dictated to him by Jesus, I would have loved to beg our Lord to add one more:

Blessed are the ugly and invisible, for Adonai El Roi sees them!

He looked past you, not at you

he had eyes only for your sister

Yet, he took you as his wife, and

used you while dreaming of her

He tolerated you, never loved you

Yet you, ugly duckling, truly loved him

 

I read your story, and

I see your faithfulness

But I also hear your cries,

and I feel your pain

You chose not to contest, you

became content in containment

 

Betrothed without consent

by your devious father,

and betrayed without remorse

by your entitled husband

A deceptive wager to the first,

and a deadweight to the second

 

Your father ripped your heart out,

and your husband ripped your soul out

Yet, you remained faithful, you stayed

You, weak-eyed one, bore and raised

half of the patriarchs of an entire nation

Unsung female hero of male heroes

 

Listen, dear Leah, hear my words

spoken a few thousand years on

Our Living God never condoned

the perverted “I see, I want, I take”

Not back then, not now, not ever!

Seizing without consent, is a violation

 

Doting mother of Levi and Judah,

you are the matriarch of both the

priestly and royal tribes of your people

Jesus Christ, the Messiah of your

people and a descendant of Judah

also became the ultimate High Priest

 

The same Jesus, Son of God, also

came to redeem me, a Gentile woman

With love, respect and compassion, He

restored dignity and abolished inequality

He instructed husbands to be like Him,

without perversion, without violation

 

Listen, dear Leah, hear my words

spoken a few thousand years on

Our Living God never condoned

the perverted “I see, I want, I take”

Not back then, not now, not ever!

Seizing without consent, is a violation

 

Jesus chose a well in Sychar, to meet

a woman who might well have been

a direct descendant of you, and there

in the same vicinity of where your beloved

Dinah, too, was violated, He chose a

despised, broken woman to be the

first person to hear His revelation;

 

“I AM THE MESSIAH!”

 

Leah, your Messiah, Son of the Living God,

the Saviour of all mankind is your descendant.

He redeemed you and me and all women

from brokenness and reconciled us back to

Adonai El Roi, the One Who never lost sight of us!

Thank you to my firstborn, Daniel van Aswegen, for the song rendition of my poem. Listen to it here 👇🏼